Foxbat

Foxbat or fox-bat (pronounced foks-bat)

(1) NATO reporting name for the MiG-25 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25) high-altitude supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft.

(2) A common name for members of the Megachiroptera (the Pteropus (suborder Yinpterochiroptera), a genus of megabats), some of the largest bats in the world.

Fox is from the Middle English fox, from the Old English fox (fox), from the Proto-West Germanic fuhs, from the Proto-Germanic fuhsaz (fox), from the primitive Indo-European púḱsos (the tailed one), derive possibly from puḱ- (tail).  It was cognate with the Scots fox (fox), the West Frisian foks (fox), the Fering-Öömrang North Frisian foos, the Sölring and Heligoland fos, the Dutch vos (fox), the Low German vos (fox), the German Fuchs (fox), the Icelandic fóa (fox), the Tocharian B päkā (tail, chowrie), the Russian пух (pux) (down, fluff), the Sanskrit पुच्छ (púccha) (source of the Torwali پوش‎ (pūš) (fox) and the Hindi पूंछ (pūñch) (tai”).

Bat in the context of the animal was a dialectal variant (akin to the dialectal Swedish natt-batta) of the Middle English bake & balke, from the North Germanic. The Scandinavian forms were the Old Swedish natbakka, the Old Danish nathbakkæ (literally “night-flapper”) and the Old Norse leðrblaka (literally “leather-flapper”).  The Old English word for the animal was hreremus, from hreran (to shake) and it was known also as the rattle-mouse, an old dialectal word for "bat", attested from the late sixteenth century.  A more rare form, noted from the 1540s, was flitter-mouse (the variants were flinder-mouse & flicker-mouse) in imitation of the German fledermaus (bat) from the Old High German fledaron (to flutter).

In Middle English “bat” and “old bat” were used as a (derogatory) term to describe an old woman, perhaps a suggestion of witchcraft rather than a link to bat as "a prostitute who plies her trade by night".  It’s ancient slang and one etymologist noted the French equivalent hirondelle de nuit (night swallow) was "more poetic".  To “bat the eylids” is an Americanism from 1847, an extended of the earlier (1610s) meaning "flutter (the wings) as a hawk", a variant of bate.

The term fox-bat or flying fox, (genus Pteropus), covers some sixty-five bat species found on tropical islands from Madagascar to Australia and noth through Indonesia and mainland Asia.  Most species are primarily nocturnal and are the largest bats, some attaining a wingspan of 5 feet (1.5 m) with an overall body length of some 16 inches (400 mm).  Zoologists list fox-bats as “Old World fruit bats” (family Pteropodidae) that roost in large numbers and eat fruit and are thus a potential pest, many countries restricting their importation.  Like nearly all Old World fruit bats, flying foxes use sight rather than echolocation, a physiological process for locating distant or invisible objects (such as prey) by means of sound waves reflected back to the emitter by the objects) to navigate, despite the largely nocturnal habit of most species.  In the database maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), about half of all flying fox species are listed as suffering declining populations, 15 said to be vulnerable and 11 endangered. The fox-bats were previously classified in the suborder Megachiroptera, but most researchers now place them in the suborder Yinpterochiroptera, which also contains the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, a diverse group that includes horseshoe bats, trident bats, mouse-tailed bats, and others.

MiG-25 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25).

Once the most controversial fighter in the skies, there was so much mystery surrounding the MiG-25 that US, British and NATO planners spent years spying on it with a mixture of awe, fear and dread.  Conceived originally by USSR designers to counter the threat posed by Boeing’s B-70 Valkyrie bomber, development continued even after the B70 project, rendered redundant by advances in missile technology, was cancelled.  First flown in 1964 and entering service in 1970, nearly 1200 were built and were operated by several nations as well as the USSR.  Able (still) to outrun any other fighter, only the US Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird was faster but fewer than three dozen of those were built and those were configured only for strategic reconnaissance.  When first the West became aware of the Foxbat, it caused quite a stir because, combining stunningly high speed with high altitude tolerance and a heavy weapons load, it did appear to be the long-feared platform which would render Soviet airspace immune from US penetration.  It was the threat the Foxbat was thought to pose which was influential in the direction pursued by US engineers when developing the McDonnell Douglas F15.

The Foxbat however never realized its apparently awesome implications. Because the original design brief was to produce a device which could combat the fast, high-flying B-70, many of the characteristics desirable in a short-range interceptor were neglected in the quest for something which could get very high, very quickly.  At that it was a breathtaking success but there were compromises, the fuel burn was epic and, with a very high take-off and landing speed, it could operate only from the longest runways.  Still, at what it was good at it was really good and its very presence meant the US had to plan any mission within range of a Foxbat, cognizant of the threat it was thought to present.  Unbeknown to the West, at lower altitudes it presented little threat and was no dog-fighter; it was essentially a dragster built for the skies, faster than just about anything in a straight line but really not good at turning.

It wasn’t until 1976 when a Soviet defector landed a new Foxbat in Japan in 1976 that US engineers were able to examine the airframe and draw an understanding of its capabilities.  What their analysis found was that the limitations in Soviet metallurgy and manufacturing techniques had resulted in a heavy airframe, one which really couldn’t maneuver at high speeds, and handled poorly at low altitudes. The surprisingly primitive radar was of limited effectiveness in conventional combat situations against enemy fighters, which, combined with the low altitude clumsiness meant that its drawbacks tended to outweigh the advantage it had in sheer speed at altitude, something which meant less to the US since missiles had replaced the B-70 strategic bomber.

In its rare combat outings, those advantages did however confer the occasional benefit.  In 1971, a Soviet Foxbat operating out of Egypt used its afterburners to sustain Mach 3 for an extended duration, enabling it to outrun three pursuing Israeli F4-Phantoms and one downed a US Navy F/A-18 Hornet during the first Gulf War (1991).  During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), the Iraqi Air Force found them effective against old, slow machinery but sustained heavy losses when confronted with the Iran’s agile F-14 but most celebrated was probably the Foxbat’s success during the Gulf War in claiming both of the last two American aircraft lost in air-to-air combat.  Otherwise, the Foxbat has at low altitude proved vulnerable, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) shooting down several in the war over Lebanon (1981) although they have of late been used, most improbably, in a ground attack role in the Syrian Civil War, the Syrian Arab Air Force, lacking a more appropriate platform, pressing the Foxbats into a ground support role, in at least one case using air-to-air missiles to attack ground targets.

The Soviet designers took note of the operating environment when developing the Foxbat’s successor, the MiG-31 (NATO reporting name Foxhound), a variant which sacrificed a little of the pure speed and climb-rate in order to produce a better all-round fighter.

Minor modification: 1960 Jaguar XK150 3.4 Shooting Brake (“Foxbat”).

What is claimed to be the planet’s only extant Jaguar XK150 shooting brake was built by industrial chemist and noted Jaguar enthusiast, the late Geoffrey Stevens, construction undertaken between 1975-1977.  It was made by combining a donor XK150 fixed-head coupé (FHC) and a Morris Minor Traveller of similar vintage.  Quite why Mr Stevens gave his project the name “Foxbat” isn’t known but it was in 1976, during the build, that a Soviet air force pilot defected to Japan (arriving with his MiG-25 Foxbat).  Whatever the reason, the name appears to have been deliberately chosen, a hand-cut “Foxbat” badge matching the original Jaguar script added to the tailgate.  Said still to be a matching-numbers example with the FHC’s original drive-train, the chassis number is S825106DN, the engine number V7435-8.

Appliqué

Appliqué (pronounced ap-li-key)

(1) Ornamentation, as a decorative cut-out design, sewn on, glued or otherwise applied to a piece of material.

(2) The practice of decorating in this way

(3) A work so formed or an object so decorated.

(4) A decorative feature, as a sconce, applied to a surface.

(5) To apply, as appliqué to.

(6) In medicine, of a red blood cell infected by the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum, assuming a form in which the early trophozoite of Plasmodium falciparum parasitises the marginal portion of the red blood cell, appearing as if the parasite has been “applied”.

1841: From the from French appliqué (work applied or laid on to another material), noun use of the past participle of appliquer (to apply), from the twelfth century Old French apliquier), from the Latin applicare (attach to, join, connect) and the source of “apply” in Modern English.  The alternative spelling is applique and in French, the feminine was appliquée, the masculine plural appliqués & the feminine plural appliquées.  As a verb, appliqué refers to a method of construction but as a noun, depending on the item, the synonyms can include finery, ornament, plaque, ribbon, trinket, wreath, brocade, decoration, lace, needlepoint, quilting, tapestry, mesh, arabesque, bauble, braid, curlicue, dingbat & embellishment.  Appliqué is a noun, verb & adjective appliquéd is a verb & adjective and appliquéing is a verb; the noun plural is appliqués.

The woodie wagon and the descent to DI-NOC appliqué

Horse drawn carriages of course began with timber construction, metal components added as techniques in metallurgy improved.  The methods of construction were carried over to the horseless carriages, most early automobiles made with a steel chassis and bodywork which could be of metal, wood or even leather, located by a wooden frame.  That endured for decades before being abandoned by almost all manufacturers by the 1970s, Morgan remaining one of the few traditionalists, their craftspeople (some of whom are now women) still fashioning some of the internal structure (attached to the aluminum chassis) from lovingly shaped and sanded English ash.

Early woodies:  1934 Ford V8 Model 40 woodie wagon (left), 1941 Packard One-Ten woodie wagon (centre) and 1949 Mercury 9CM woodie wagon (right).

During the inter-war years, the timberwork again became prominent in the early shooting brakes and station wagons.  Because such vehicles were limited production variations of the standard models, it wasn’t financially viable to build the tooling required to press the body panels so a partially complete cars were used (often by an external specialist), onto which was added the required coachwork, all fashioned in timber in the same manner used for centuries.  In the US, the cars were known as woodie wagons (often spelled woody in the UK where the same techniques were used) and the more expensive were truly fine examples of the cabinet-maker’s art, the timbers sometimes carefully chosen to match the interior appointments.  So much did the highly-polished creations resemble the fine oak, walnut and mahogany furniture with which the rich were accustomed to being around that they began to request sedans and convertibles built in the same way and the industry responded with top-of-the-range models with timber doors and panels replacing the pressed metal used on the cheaper versions.

1947 Nash Ambassador sedan (left), 1947 1948 Chrysler Town & Country convertible (centre) and 1947 Cadillac Series 75 Limousine 1947 (right).  Such was the appeal of the intricate woodwork that in the 1940s, manufacturers offered it on very expensive models although the timber offered no functional advantage over metal construction.

General Motors (GM) in 1935 actually introduced an all-steel model with station wagon coachwork but it was on a light-truck chassis (shades of the twenty-first century) and intended more for commercial operators; nobody then followed GM’s example.  The woodies were of course less practical and in some climates prone to deterioration, especially when the recommended care and maintenance schedules were ignored but demand continued and some returned to the catalogue in 1946 when production of civilian automobiles resumed from the war-time hiatus but these lines were almost all just the 1942 cars with minor updates.  By 1949, the manufacturers had introduced their genuinely new models, the construction of which was influenced by the lessons learned during the war years when factories had been adapted to make a wide range of military equipment.  Although woodies remained briefly available in some of the new bodies, one innovation which emerged from this time was the new “all steel” station wagon which was not only cheaper to produce than the labor-intensive woodie but something ideally suited to the emerging suburban populations and it would for decades be one of the industry’s best-sellers, decline not setting in until the mid-1970s.

US manufacturers applied the appliqué for decades and until 1953, Ford even used real timber for the DI-NOC's perimeter molding.  Some were worse than others.

However, although by the mid-1950s, the all-steel bodies had in the US replaced all but the handful of coach-built wagons made for those who valued exclusivity more than practicality, there was still a nostalgic longing for the look of timber.  It was too expensive to use the real stuff but what was adapted was DI-NOC, (Diurno Nocturna, from the Spanish, literally “daytime-nighttime” and translated for marketing purposes as “beautiful day & night”), an embossed vinyl or polyolefin material with a pressure-sensitive adhesive backing produced since the 1930s and perfected by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M).  Described as an “architectural finish”, it was used mostly for interior design purposes in hundreds of patterns and was able to be laid over a variety of substrates such as drywall, metal, and laminate.  Remarkably effective at emulating (at a distance) more expensive materials such as wood, leather, marble, metal or granite, what the manufacturers did was not re-create the appearance of the original woodies but instead unleash the designers on the large side-surfaces of the modern Amerian car, the results mostly variations of a theme and polarizing, the DI-NOC appliqués something one either loved or hated.

1963 Ford Consul Cortina 1500 (Mk1 “Woody” estate) (left) and 1963 Ford Falcon Squire (left).  Neither sold well or were offered for long, the Falcon’s DI-NOC particularly ill-suited to the Australian summer.

It was the Americans who fell in love with the look and in the 1960s and 1970s, a wide range of cars, large and small and all of them station wagons were available off the showroom floor, complete with a faux-woodgrain appliqué glued to the flanks and sometimes the tailgate.  3M claimed it looked exactly like the real thing and at night, that was actually true although close-up, daylight exposed reality like the ugly lights in a night-club, something especially noted of a DI-NOCed machine which has spent a couple of summers baking in the Arizona sun.  Still, nobody actually claimed it was real wood and unlike something subtle like a badge, several square feet of DI NOC plastered on the sides was a way of telling everyone you bought the most expensive model.  Detroit had established colonies in England, Australia and Germany and there they tried to export the DI-NOC idea.  The Prussians weren’t tempted but Ford did briefly offer an embellished Cortina in the UK and the Falcon Squire in Australia.

Real, sort of real and surreal.  1964 Morris Minor Traveller (left), 1961 advertisement for the Morris Mini Traveller (centre) and the custom (originally a 1960 3.4 FHC (fixed head coupé)) Jaguar XK150 shooting brake (Foxbat).

In the UK, one traditional woodie did enjoy a long life, the Morris Traveller, introduced in 1953 as an addition to the Minor range (1948-1972 (1975 in overseas markets)) remaining in production until 1971, the body aft of the doors formed with structural timber members which supported infill panels in painted aluminum.  It was the last true woodie in production and is now a thing in the lower reaches of the collector market, one donating its rear compartment to someone who wanted the Jaguar XK150 shooting brake the factory never made.  Dubbed the Foxbat, it has been restored as a charming monument to English eccentricity.  However, while the Minor Traveller was real, the subsequent Mini Traveller (1961–1969) was a curious hybrid: Structurally it was exactly the same car as the Mini station wagon, the external members real wood but wholly decorative affectations which were attached directly to the steel body, the "infill" panels an illusion.  The original Mini enjoyed a forty-year life between 1959-2000 but when in 2001 BMW introduced their retro-flavored take on the idea, although they resurrected a few motifs, they didn’t bring back a woodie, fake, faux or real.

Lindsay Lohan in lace appliqué trousers and black swimsuit, Mykonos, Greece, August 2016.